This was a warning to Adam in Genesis 2:16-17. Pay attention to the words used and what exactly is prohibited by this divine prohibition. Now, let's fast forward to chapter 3 where Eve answers the serpent's question, "hath God said".
"We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die." Genesis 3:2-3
Now read what God said to Adam.....ok good. Now read what Eve said.........ok. Did you see it? Eve added on to the divine prohibition forbidding the eating of fruit from the tree of good and evil. I don't think Eve can be totally blamed for her mistake, she didn't exist when God told Adam not to eat the fruit, Adam may have tried to make the prohibition stronger so Eve wouldn't even get close to the fruit.
Robert Alter, professor of Hebrew Language at University of California Berkeley, commented on Eve's words in Genesis 3, "Eve enlarges the divine prohibition in another direction, adding a ban on touching to the one on eating, and so perhaps setting herself up for transgression : having touched the fruit, and seeing no ill effect, she may proceed to eat."
Eve has enlarged the divine prohibition, or perhaps Adam embellished it when he relayed it to Eve(remember she didn'e exist when God gave Adam this prohibition) an attempt to ensure she didn't even go near the forbidden fruit. The line has been drawn sharper than God intended. So of course Eve doesn't die when she touches the fruit, and she is emboldened to taste the fruit.
I will attempt to explain again with a different story other than the creation one. I have been reared around horses my entire life. And being around horses so much means that I have been around fences as long as I have been around horses. Fences are important, but it doesn't take long for bushes and eventually trees to begin to grow along fence lines because mowers can't reach there without knocking the fence down. Very quickly the brush can grow up to the point that you can't see the fence. I have been on old ranches where an old fence had once been, the only hint that a fence had been there was the straight line of bushes and trees growing in a perfect rectangle! Traditions and rules can become a part of Christianity, and this itself is not an evil thing; however when these traditions, or rules, begin to grow and to cover scripture-the "fence"-then scripture has been surpassed by tradition and is no longer primary. Let us refuse to allow scripture to be overgrown by the vain traditions of man. Traditions are always secondary to scripture. However, when scripture is overtaken by traditions, we forget. We can't see "the fence"(i.e. scripture) and we wonder why all this brush is there in the first place. So we begin to hack at it. And rightfully so. However, we can become so emphatic and doctrinaire in our own assertions, that we forget about "the fence" and as we continue to slice through the useless brush, we take the fence down with it as well.
I don't say this to stop anyone from cutting at the brush, only to warn them to be careful in their cutting so that "the fence" will not be put down in their own lives. Be careful of the brush, it warps "the fence", twisting it to it's own means, but don't take down the fence with the brush. Don't enlarge the divine prohibition.
It's quite simple, Don't Fence what God Freed and Don't Free what God Fenced.
1. The Five Books of Moses, Robert Alter, Chapter 3, note on verse 3.
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